Una Mullally: Kavanaugh illustrates many tricks and tropes of male rage
Talk of academic prowess and athletic skill, while distancing past self, are classic tactics
Protesters blocked Republican Senator Jeff Flake inside an elevator to demand answers after he released a statement saying he would vote to support President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Video: Reuters
If a group of writers sat in room for a year trying to concoct a theatre of male anger, they could never have scripted the Senate hearing of Brett Kavanaugh last week. Their script would be seen as too on the nose, too cliched, too outrageous.
Yet this contemporary theatre drawn along gender lines, where a victim of sexual assault is forced into calmness despite her being the one who suffered the trauma, and where the alleged assaulter assumes the stance of aggression and hysteria, is instructive in how it illustrates many of the tricks and tropes of male rage.